Everyone loves Anthropic

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week.

We are back from Disrupt — more on the winner of Battlefield here and Equity's event rundown here — and while a little tired, we are fired up for the rest of the year.

Here's what we got into on the show today:

• Stocks are not starting this week on a high note, and crypto prices have also moderated in recent days.

• Alex could not not talk about the Cisco-Splunk deal, mostly to promise that he'll finish that post today come hell or highwater.

• The Amazon + Anthropic news is the biggest news of the day. A $1.25 billion deal that could stretch to $4 billion is no small fee. With Google, Amazon and Anthropic tied up, and Microsoft buddied up with OpenAI, we're seeing Big Tech choosing sides in the LLM model war.

• Meta is building AI chatbots, and Apple is working to build more stuff in India.

• In closing, we looked at Correcto's neat round, and the finalists from Startup Battlefield 2023.

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more!